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I kind of like February, mainly because it’s a short month and it means spring, my favorite season is just around the corner. Smack dab in the middle of February is Valentine’s Day, the celebration of what’s good about the relationship between a man and a woman—focused attention on love. As a therapist, I’m all about desiring the promotion of truly intimate relationship—two individuals coming together, understanding and appreciating each other’s uniqueness, and making the choice to love the other. I recently attended Andy Stanley’s Q & A session from “Dateable”, part of a singles’ series at Buckhead Church. Speaking to a crowd of around 3000 singles, he made a quite counter-cultural statement in his answer to the common question, “How far is too far?” The gist of what he said was this: There’s too much emphasis on sexual compatibility in seeking a partner. There are probably a million different people with whom one can be sexually compatible. Relational compatibility is much more rare. Since it is most often relational problems that cause the break up of relationships, dating relationships would be more wisely served to prioritize the relational/friendship components over the physical. Dr. John Gottman’s research on marital stability and divorce prediction confirmed the priority of a couple’s friendship in the Sound Relationship House Theory upon the highly acclaimed and effective Gottman Couples’ Therapy is based. The first three levels of the Relationship House are components of the friendship foundation. 1.The friendship is built first on really getting to know each other by asking open ended questions and paying attention to the answers (Making a Love Map in your mind of the other person) I learned at a recent Gottman workshop that there is a Love Map app that can be downloaded on your smart phone. Just a little shake of the phone, and brand new questions upon which you can build the friendship with your significant other. I love it! (Probably no surprise for a therapist to love questions) 2.The second component of friendship is looking for what one’s partner is doing right and showing appreciation versus looking for his or her mistakes and correcting them. A culture of fondness, affection, and respect then follows. 3.The process of building an emotional bank account, the third component, involves paying attention to the everyday moments when the partner reaches out in some way to connect emotionally and being responsive to those bids by turning toward those opportunities to connect. When these components of friendship are present as a foundation, there is a positive perspective about the relationship that will make the more difficult areas of problem solving and conflict resolution less stressful and more effective. (Gottman, John, 1999. The Seven Priniciples for Making Marriage Work. New York, New York: Three Rivers Press) Another goal I have as a therapist is related to helping the individuals within a relationship become healthy themselves. In Emotional Healthy Spirituality, the author, Peter Scazzero, pointed out that chronological age does not necessarily correlate to emotional maturity. I found his summaries of emotional infants, children, adolescents, and adults fascinating. For the sake of having a goal for the emotional maturity we are to shoot for, I am only including the excerpt describing adults:

EMOTIONAL ADULTS·Are able to ask for what they need, want, or prefer—clearly, directly, honestly·Recognize, manage, and take responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings·Can, when under stress, state their own beliefs and values without becoming adversarial·Appreciate people for who they are—the good, bad, and ugly—not for what they give back·Accurately assess their own limits, strengths, and weaknesses and are able to freely discuss them with others·Are deeply in tune with their own emotional world and able to enter into the feelings, needs, and concerns of others without losing themselves·Have the capacity to resolve conflict maturely and negotiate solutions that consider the perspectives of the other (Scazzero, Peter (2006) Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, p. 179)

Valentine’s Day 2015 is over, but hopefully, the relationship that you celebrated or the one you want to have is not. Quality friendships withstand the test of time. Hopefully, you’ve seen some ways you can work on the relationship you’re in habitually to make it better. Or learned how to bring an emotionally mature adult to any relationship, present or future.